For the story on the Bremerton City Council’s third option for interim mayor, we were unable to contact City Council President Cecil McConnell by press time.
The story recounts how he suggested the idea of getting himself appointed full-time mayor. He may have suggested it, but on Friday he said he doesn’t want that to be the council’s solution.
“Personally, I prefer the mayor’s plan, which is pro tem until the mayor’s elected,” he said. That means he’d take his council president role of mayor pro tem all the way through November, when the new mayor’s election is certified. “I think that’s a simpler way of doing it,” McConnell said.
For the city it’s cheaper, too, a savings in the neighborhood of $50,000 that it wouldn’t have to pay in a mayor’s salary.
McConnell would be paid that money if he were appointed mayor for the interim, but to him it isn’t necessarily enough of a positive. It would bump him up a tax bracket and he’d have to give up his council seat, which he said he doesn’t want to do. He signed up for four years, he said. He wants to finish.
The idea he suggested at the council meeting had earlier been offered up by a staff member, he said. McConnell plans to push for the mayor pro tem proposal. The issue is supposed to be discussed at the council’s meeting Wednesday.
